The making of 'Age of Ignorance'
Age of Ignorance was inspired events of the DARK AGES. I watched a documentary and probably based the riffs on sounds I heard from that. I'm usually composing riffs and have notes on hand. Simon came by to set up drums for upcoming rehearsals in mid-2015, July Maybe. I had the TASCAM 424 Cassette rolling. We went over the music ideas, ran through it once, then recorded the second pass through the song. I I suggested the Title to Herb, referencing the DARK AGES. It's the only song from the sessions that we had to track bass to. The rest of the songs we'd been writing and rehearsing for a few years (except 'Proliferation of Disease' and recorded the basic track live in my basement with a couple of room mic's. We ended up having to record the bass track twice because I erased part of it while tracking solos or something. The production is different on this song and it came out pretty cool. It was intended for use as a track on a split EP, and was the second song completed during the recording sessions. I re-did guitar parts a couple of times because I didn't like the sound. I decided to experiment with one of my old stomp boxes I got around 1982, an old ARION Metal Master, I think its called. It has just filthy sound. It was my first effects pedal, and pretty essential to my developing as a guitar player, I used that thing for years before I ever thought I'd actually be in a Death Metal band. I used it on the PLAGUE BEARER-Rise of the Goat EP. I ran that old pedal through a 50W Marshall cranked! It really came out great. This time I paired it with my Mesa Triple Rectifier recorded in my PLAGUE PIT STUDIO (basement), which has a cavernous sound and is part of what makes this PROLIFERATION OF DISEASE DEMO ALBUM so much fun. Its just surprising how cool it is to hear old school Death Metal like it was 25 years ago recorded live and one take performances, analog production techniques with somewhat sparse production values. It's not quite like some of past records, but the music and atmosphere shine through somehow making it a really fun tribute to the past and the release of our first demo tape 20 years ago, 1996 Self Titled 8 song with an alleged photo of Curt Cobains 'Open Mind' on the photo copied cover.
